


This Is a Really Bad Idea

by codswallop



Series: Burning Dog [2]
Category: Generation Kill
Genre: AND ALSO SEX, Generation Kill Week, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic, caretaking with banter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-25 09:34:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12033150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codswallop/pseuds/codswallop
Summary: Ray's malaria recurrence has incredibly shitty timing.(A stupidly long-overdue sequel toBurning Dog.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first 700 words of this story were originally posted as a ficlet for Porn Battle some years ago, on the off chance that anyone finds the opening suspiciously familiar. This is how it was meant to go after that.

“So,” Ray said, when the door to Brad’s apartment had snicked shut behind Lilley and it was down to just the two of them. “So. This is--”

That was as far as he got before Brad had him by the upper arms, spinning him around to face him, and Ray barely had time to think _oh, goddamn, what--_ before it got started. The adrenaline hit him almost right away in a monster rush; he didn’t know for a few seconds if Brad wanted to make out or beat the shit out of him.

No, this was definitely making out. Too much mouth involved for fighting. It was rough kissing, though, hard and frenzied whiskey-mouthed kissing--Ray tried to step away after a minute to get his breath, but Brad yanked him back against him, one hand gripping at his waist and the other going to Ray’s chin, tilting his head up and diving at him like he wanted to devour him in a few sharp hungry bites.

Ray shoved him away hard. “Jesus Christ, Colbert,” he got out, panting, and then, “All right, that was fucking hot, do it some more,” and he got a quick flash of predator-white grin before Brad was on him again. His hands were on Ray’s lower back now, untucking his t-shirt, warm and firm against his skin--fucking huge hands. He was probably hung like a beast, and Ray’s stomach sort of dropped at the sudden thought that he was maybe almost definitely about to find out, if this kept going the way it was looking like it was about to. 

“Off,” Brad mumbled into Ray’s jawline, lifting his t-shirt up higher. “Get this off, so I can--” He sounded sort of desperate, the way Ray had imagined him sounding in fantasies, the way he never, _ever_ sounded in real life. Ray hitched it up and yanked it off, frantic for duration of the two seconds it took before Brad’s mouth was on him again, hot on his collarbone and neck, and Brad’s hands were brushing against his bare stomach as he worked Ray’s belt buckle open and sucked a bruise onto his throat at the same time. 

Ray’s knees basically gave out right around the time his jeans hit the floor, but the couch was right there to catch him, luckily, and Brad dropped down and shoved his legs apart to kneel between them and dip his head down and...

“Ho. Ly. Fuck,” Ray said. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. They wanted to go to the back of Brad’s head and rub against the close-shorn back of his skull and...not push him down, but just maybe _hold_ him there, because if he moved, if he moved too fast Ray was going to come in his mouth, and if he moved away-- “Holy fuck, you are kidding me, this is not happening, Colbert, you are not going down on my dick like a five-dollar Tijuana whore. I’m dreaming this. Tell me I’m dreaming this. No, wait, don’t!” he yelped, as Brad pulled off with a long, lingering suck.

Brad looked up at him, reproachful and serious, mouth wet, eyes so sharp and bright and blue that Ray had to look away. “Do you want me to stop, Ray?” he asked. “I doubt it. I’m a hell of a lot better at this than a five-dollar Tijuana whore.” 

“I know! I’m sorry! It’s just fucking unexpected, Jesus--”

“Then shut the fuck up for once. You need something to bite down on, or...?”

“Nope,” Ray said. “Shutting up now. _Sir_ ,” he added.

Brad grinned again, like the heart-stopping blue-eyed dicksucker he was. “None of that. Just...don’t talk. And think about how you want to get me off when I’m done. I kind of want to fuck your ass through the mattress and see if you’re as tight as all the other officers say, but that’s up to you.”

He put his head down again, and Ray had to bite his own hand, it turned out, in order to keep his promise.

*

“So,” Brad said, resting his chin on his hands, elbows still on Ray’s knees. “Thought about it yet?”

“I,” Ray said. “I. Yeah. What was the question? Yes? Pretty much yes.”

He stood up, flexed his jaw, and offered Ray a hand up. “OK. Good answer. Bed?”

It still seemed like an insane wet dream. Ray had thought about this _a lot_ , to be honest, for months now, usually with one hand down his pants, and now that he was actually getting it, it was freaking him out. His head was still spinning from the mindbending orgasm he’d just had, and the thought of more-- The thought of being actually in bed with Brad, touching each other, naked, letting him-- It sent shivers all through him. His boxers and jeans were still around his ankles, which probably looked fucking ridiculous, and he pulled them up quickly, ignoring Brad's outstretched hand.

Brad's look turned questioning. He dropped his hand. "Second thoughts?"

"No!" Ray struggled up off the sofa. "No. No second thoughts. You know, just, 'oh, but this is all so sudden, officer,' or some shit like that."

"Yeah, but it's not, though," Brad said, moving in on him again--Christ, he was so much taller close up. "Right? We've been back six weeks, and I still can't quit thinking about it, and you were staring at me all night like an eighth-grader with a crush…"

"Wow. You arrogant mother _fucker_." 

"I was staring right back," Brad pointed out, and leaned down to kiss him again. Shivers, fuck, his stomach felt like he'd just swallowed a handful of ice, and his knees were actually going all weak and shaky. And not exactly in a fun buzzy way, either, especially with the way his head was starting to spin and swim, just like when--

"Oh, fuck me," Ray said.

"Ask nicely."

"No, I mean--fuck, I can't stay, I need to go."

"Really," Brad said, stepping back and waiting for the punchline. "Really?"

Ray looked around for his t-shirt, found it half under the sofa and pulled it back on. "Yeah. I know. Ha. Let's just…okay, let's just say I'm a little freaked out, not a lot, just, I need to adjust to the idea, right?"

"Ray, we don't have to actually--"

"I know! No! It's not that. I just need a little time. I know this is incredibly uncool, but…I think I need maybe a few days or something. Yeah. Fuck. Sorry." 

"You're not kidding," Brad said, looking blank. Ray didn't blame him. He wanted to say _it's not what you think,_ but Brad was probably going to figure it out in about two seconds even as it was. 

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Ray said, wincing at the ridiculousness of it. “Or...soon, anyway.” Could he kiss Brad again? Better not risk it. He grabbed his jacket from the hook by the door.

“Hang on, what the fuck-- _Ray!_ " Brad broke out his sergeant voice, and Ray froze for a second on pure reflex, then kept going without turning around.

"Sorry," he said again, and left.

*

He was almost positive Brad would follow him right out the door, or call his cell right away, or hop on his bike and beat Ray back to his place. He didn't do any of those things, though, and Ray was both miffed and relieved. Mostly relieved, because the shakes were really setting in good and he was actively starting to feel like shit by the time he got home. If Brad could see him now, he'd know in two seconds what was up.

Fucking malaria. Eight weeks since the last attack, almost, he thought, throwing his keys on the kitchen counter and struggling out of his jacket--maybe nine? Doing the math in his head made him feel even more like puking, so he decided to call it eight. He’d thought he was home free, despite the small fact that he wasn’t on full medical clearance yet and they’d warned him relapses were possible and even likely for the first six months to a year. Fuck that, Ray had decided. He was going to be one of the lucky ones who had it beat after round one.

Only not. Decidedly _un_ lucky, in fact, what with the timing of it--Ray could hardly believe this was happening. Had that really happened, back at Brad’s, or was it some sort of weird-ass wet hallucination fever dream? He was in the bathroom now, rummaging through the medicine cabinet for Tylenol or aspirin or some kind of shit to take the edge off the fever and the aches, finding nothing but a nearly empty, long-expired bottle of Midol some ex-girlfriend or other had left there about a hundred years ago. Ray dry-swallowed the contents anyway. The shakes were setting in pretty good now, and he decided to see what a hot shower would do for him--he remembered longing for one back at the camp.

Stripping off his clothes reminded him painfully that he probably would have been naked with Brad right now, if only…unless it actually had been a hallucination, but the memory was too vivid, as were the thumbprint-shaped bruises darkening on his hipbones where Brad had held him down. _Fuck_ if the sight of them didn’t make his dick twitch and start to rise again despite everything. Ray sighed and closed his eyes, bracing one hand against the bathroom sink, and began to touch himself, gingerly wrapping his hand around his half-erection and working it up and down once, twice, but his stomach gave a sudden violent lurch, and thirty seconds later he was on his knees emptying his guts into the toilet.

Great, so now he was going to have a Pavlovian reflex and puke every time he got hard from now on, probably. Par for the fucking course.

Ray fumbled for the flush and then rested his forehead on the closed toilet seat until he could drag himself into the shower and see if hot water and steam might beat any of the chill out of his bones.

***

The next thing Ray knew, he was for some reason curled up in his bathtub with freezing cold water pouring down on him--or it had been until a second ago, he thought--someone had just turned it off. He raised his head with enormous difficulty, wiping ice water off his face, and apparently he was hallucinating for real now because Brad was staring down at him, looking grim and angry (or else moderately constipated; it was always a toss-up with Brad) with one hand on the water tap.

“You’re not here,” Ray told him, or tried to--it came out pretty wet and garbled and his teeth were chattering so hard he thought they might break. That would be just about exactly what he needed, broken teeth on top of everything else tonight.

“You look like a drowned rat most of the time even without trying,” Brad observed, and fuck, he sounded pissed, which was so unfair. Couldn’t he have hallucinated some kind of Disney-version Nice Brad for once? “The resemblance is truly remarkable right now. Come on, get up.” 

Ray shut his eyes and tried to flip him off, but wasn’t sure how far he got--not even his middle finger would obey him. Clearly, he was going nowhere.

The hallucination had other ideas, though, and it also seemed to have really strong, really huge, really _warm_ hands that actually felt kind of good, so it was a pity that Ray’s brain checked out again and made him miss the next part. He was on his bed now, wrapped in a damp blanket, still frozen most of the way to numb but no longer dripping wet--it really was an interesting night, or would have been if he could keep his focus, he thought. Although the parts that weren’t numb were starting to hurt like a bitch. So much for Midol. No wonder that chick who’d left it behind was always screeching.

He was alone on the bed, but someone was talking in the next room, he thought. It sounded like one of those grownup voices on Charlie Brown-- _wah, wa woh-wa wonh-wa_ \--and it lulled him back into a sort of monotonous doze for a while, but then there was a ringing crash that sounded a lot like a telephone being thrown halfway across the room, which jerked him upright and blinking as Brad stormed through the bedroom door.

“Son of a syphilitic tight-assed frigid whore,” Brad said, in that quiet intense madman way that meant he was about to fucking _explode_ on someone’s ass. “Fuck the chain of established on-base protocols right in their fucking ear, so what if it’s two in the fucking morning, are you only allowed to act like a human being until midnight and then you turn into a raging diseased c-- Ray. Hi. You're awake.” Brad looked closely at him. “Are you awake?”

“I don’t know.” It was alarming to be this close in a small room with that much furious Brad, when you weren’t used to it anymore and when you weren’t sure whose head he wanted to rip off and whether or not he was real. “Are you?”

“Am I awake?” Brad sat down on the bed next to him, which really felt real--his weight made the whole side of the bed creak down in a completely convincing way, and he did that half-smirk thing that meant he was still pissed off but finding it all sickly amusing at the same time, although Ray’s brain could have cooked up that detail all on its own--he knew that pissed-off little smile so well. “I wish I weren’t. Bryan won’t come out, that dick-suck, and I’m not running you over to the clinic during graveyard shift unless you're bleeding out--we’ll just sit there all night. Lie down and quit looking at me like that. It’s fucking spooky.”

“You actually are here,” Ray tried to clarify first, hoping to get one thing straight. “I didn’t let you in, did I?”

“You left your fucking front door unlocked like the trailer trash you always have been and always will be. Which was actually really goddamn lucky on this occasion. Lie down, numbnuts. I’m taking you to the doc in the morning, which is only about five hours from now, if you can manage not to die before then.”

“I’m dying?” Ray’s heart started hammering, and he told it to cut it out--what was he turning into, some kind of liberal civilian pussy? 

“Not unless I decide to kill you for the crime of sheer stupidity. Lie the fuck down, Corporal, don’t make me tell you again.”

Ray obeyed, turning on his side to face the wall.

“And quit _shaking_ ,” Brad sighed, and lay down next to him, spooning him with both arms tight around Ray’s chest, which didn’t actually help, but which felt so good he thought he might not mind dying too much if it was going to happen like this.

“Not supposed to be here, though,” Ray mumbled halfheartedly. “What’re you even doing here? I didn't want you to know.”

“Your evasive maneuvers are shit,” Brad informed him. “I figured it out as soon as the epic case of blue balls you left me with cooled down. You wouldn't look at me when you left because you knew I'd see it--your eyes go all fucked-up whenever this happens.”

Ray wondered, a bit deliriously, exactly what it was his eyes did that gave him away. Change colors? Spin in circles? Go all huge and black like some kind of evil movie mutant’s? 

“I don't get _why_ you thought you had to run out, though,” Brad complained quietly to the back of Ray’s neck after a couple of minutes. “I mean, obviously your addled little mind is even more off the rails than usual when your brains are being cooked by a billion-degree fever, but even so, what the fuck, Person? What have I ever done to make you think I wouldn't have your six when you're like this?”

He didn't seem to expect an answer, which was good, because Ray was still mostly stuck in his own head watching home movies of his own eyes doing all kinds of terrifying Roger Rabbit shit. The small remaining cognizant part of his brain wanted to tell Brad what a colossal fucking idiot he was, though. When the big stupid Greek god you've been pining over for months finally, _finally_ gets his act together and gives you the surprise epic blowjob of your dreams, you don't want to finish out the night by being put to bed like a sad shivering drowned rat and trying not to puke all over his Greek-godliness.

But trying to get that many words out would only make the puke-scenario all the more likely, probably. 

*

He woke on fire: burning city, desert scrub in the noonday heat, mouthful of sand and ashes. His head felt oddly light and clear, though, and he could make out every flaming syllable of Brad’s voice on the phone in the next room. 

“I don't know,” Brad was saying. “Fucking _hot_ , okay? He doesn't exactly keep a fully stocked cabinet of emergency medical supplies in this shithole apartment. No, not yet, but I will. I know. I know. Yeah, I _know_ \--who do you think sat up with him all those nights in Diwaniyah?”

(Ray resented that, through the waves of heat rolling over him; he hadn't fucking asked anyone to sit up with him, and half the time it had been Walt. Who never yelled and lost his shit. Good old Walt.)

“I know,” Brad said again, sounding tired and defeated now. “It’s fine, it's fine, it's fine, I will, I know. I'm going now. _Yes,_ I will. Okay, later.”

Ray heard the phone being set down--not thrown this time, at least--and waited warily for Brad to reappear. It took a few minutes.

“You should quit hassling Bryan,” Ray told him. “We’re not deployed with him anymore. And it's just a stupid fucking relapse. Go home and let me sweat it out, I'll call you in a few days.”

“Nice try.” Brad held out a glass of water. “Drink the whole thing, okay?”

Ray wanted to refuse, but he was too thirsty. “Give it,” he said grudgingly, and drained it in one go. “Seriously, go away, homes, I don't want you here right now.”

Brad came closer instead, as if he hadn't even heard, and put a hand on Ray’s forehead, then his face, looking distant and critical, as if he were assessing a moderately serious malfunction in the Humvee. “You need to get some clothes on,” he said finally. “It's almost morning. We’re heading over to the clinic at eight hundred hours, as soon as the morning staff gets in.” 

“No,” Ray said, turning away from him. 

“It's not a request, Corporal.”

“Is this ’cause I wouldn't let you fuck me before? If I let you do it now, will you go away when you're done and leave me alone?”

Brad sat down on the bed. “Ray,” he said. “You sound remarkably lucid, all things considered, so listen up. I can carry you, I can call an ambulance, or you can let me put some clothes on you and help you to your car, which I will then drive to the clinic. Bryan’s going to meet us there so he can make sure the attending has the run-down on your case. I'd get second-degree burns on my dick if I tried to stick it into any of your orifices right now, but I fully intend to fuck you stupid--stupid _er_ \--as soon as you're operational again. Copy?”

***

The clinic on base kept him there for five days. By the end of the second day, Ray felt fine except for being sore from all the needles and prodding. By the end of the third day, he would have blown Captain America if if would get him a discharge. The bare stinking concrete at Ad Diwaniyah had been an earthly paradise in comparison to this.

Bryan came by on the fourth day. “They’ll spring you tomorrow, I'm pretty sure,” he said, flipping through Ray’s chart. “Parole you, anyway--your liver’s fucked, they're going want to monitor your reactions to the medication pretty closely. You need anything?”

Ray shrugged.

“Well, hang in there,” Bryan said. “I know it sucks, but it could be a shit-ton worse. Brad’s out there in the waiting area, you know--want me to send him in?”

“No,” Ray said with sudden heat. “I mean...no.”

“Oh.” Bryan gave him a funny look. “All right, then.”

“I’m a fucked-up mess,” Ray said, subsiding into colorlessness again. “I wish he’d just...who wants to be seen like this, you know? He doesn't ever think.”

“Well,” said Bryan. “Maybe. If he were the one lying in this bed, though, what would you be doing? Not that it's any of my business,” he added, sounding almost cheerful about it. “Good luck--I'll stop by again tomorrow if you're still here.”

Ray thanked him absently, most of his mind on the thought of Brad in a hospital bed. Would Ray leave him alone and let the oversized idiot suffer quietly in dignified peace? Or would he break the damn door down and sleep at the foot of the bed like a pit bull with an attachment disorder over all Brad’s objections? 

Pit bull, definitely. No question.

***

“I hate this, though,” he told Brad, later that evening. “Turn on the TV, anything, put on the dumbest crap you can find so we can make fun of it or something. The way you keep _looking_ at me is seriously the most creepy bullshit I've ever seen. Do you get off on sick people? Would we have even--” Ray swallowed and lowered his voice a bit. “Hooked up, if I hadn't come down with this motherfucking disease?”

“No,” Brad said. “Because I wouldn't have known you were madly in love with me if you hadn't spiked a fever and told the whole company about it in your sleep.” He found the remote and started flipping channels--all three of them, but it was better than nothing.

“Fuck you, I did not. Besides, I was so out of it I was probably talking about seeing pink elephants and shit. Did you believe in those, too?”

Brad sat back and gave him one of those coolly amused Iceman once-overs that made Ray feel like the start of another malaria attack: full-body shivers. “So you're not madly in love with me?”

“ _Hell_ no.” Ray waited, glanced over, and watched the tiniest bit of uncertainty steal into Brad’s expression, which was so pathetic he could hardly stand it. “Lust, maybe.”

Brad coughed, covering a smile, and pulled his chair closer to the bed. He nodded at the TV. “This crappy enough for you? ‘The Bachelor’? What even is that?”

“Perfection, homes. My sister told me about this show. You’re gonna puke--you’ll love it, seeing as how you get off on that.”

“Whatever you say,” Brad said agreeably. His left hand was resting on the bed rail, and after a minute Ray took it and snaked it under the covers. Brad’s hand was warm on his stomach, even though the thin fabric of the hospital gown, and warmer still when it found its way lower and began lazily tracing up and down the hot firm line of Ray’s dick through his underwear. 

After the next several minutes of rustling near-silence and jagged hissing breaths, Ray bit his lower lip hard and shoved Brad’s hand away with a low groan. “I can’t,” he said. “Fuck. Someone’s been coming in here like every twelve minutes to check my motherfucking spleen or some shit--I’m gonna be soaked in my own semen and reeking of sex if you don’t stop. Oh, _fuck me_ , that hurts, I think my nuts might actually explode right now.”

“Scientifically improbable,” Brad said, leaning back in his chair and looking undeniably pleased with himself. “Anyway, I owed you a case of blue balls. Enjoy. I hear it goes really well with crappy reality TV.” He leaned forward again and planted a sloppy wet kiss on Ray’s forehead, murmured, “Tomorrow,” into his ear in a low rough voice that almost made him come in his pants after all, and got up to go.

“You brother-fucking, goat-sucking, limp-dicked _asshole_ ,” Ray started, half-laughing, and Brad turned and blew him another kiss from the doorway.

“Can an asshole have a limp dick and fuck its brother, though?” Brad shook his head. “Your grasp of human anatomy could really use some remedial work, Corporal.”

“I might need private lessons?” Ray suggested, and Brad gave a half grin and mouthed _Tomorrow_ at him again before taking off down the hall.

***


	2. Chapter 2

This would all be so much easier, Brad thought, if they were still in Iraq. Probably that wasn’t true, but it felt true. War and its hardships made everything else seem relatively inconsequential, even love and sex and major illness, whereas back at home there were endless complications of procedure and too much time to think. 

Far, far too much time to think. He’d almost psyched himself out of doing anything about the Ray Situation during their first six weeks back on base, and even then he hadn’t been able to start a conversation about it like a normal human being, just jumped on Ray the minute he’d had three drinks and half an opportunity. And now…

Now Ray was being way too fucking quiet again. He hadn’t even insisted on driving himself home from the clinic, hadn’t said more than a few words ever since they’d gotten in the car. 

“Cut it out,” he told Brad now. 

“What?”

“Stop looking at me. If you crash my car and land me back in the hospital, I’ll…I don’t know what I’ll do. Also, it’s fucking annoying. So stop.”

Brad bit back a reply and turned on the radio instead. He hummed along tentatively with Destiny’s Child for a few bars until Ray reached over and turned it back off.

He got a pass for being an asshole for today, Brad decided. He was starting to worry again, though, and he was tired of worrying after this week. Another thing about being back home again: he’d had both the time and the ability to google “malaria complications.” At least the doctors at the clinic were cutting Ray loose, which had to be a good sign, but they’d sent him on his way that morning with two bags of prescriptions and a whole sheaf of instructions and follow-up appointment reminders, which probably accounted for the change in Ray’s mood between last night and today. Brad tried to glance surreptitiously down at the top page of instructions at the next red light, but Ray clocked him and chucked the whole packet into the back seat.

It was Brad who retrieved the packet when they pulled up at Ray’s apartment and Ray shot out of the car without a backward look. Brad followed after him and through the front door, flipping through the pages until Ray snatched it out of his hands. “Do you mind?” Ray snapped. “That’s personal information.” 

“Do you want me to leave?” Brad asked him--not a threat, just a question.

Ray threw himself down into one of the kitchen chairs. “No. I don’t care. I don’t know. Just…” He trailed off, chewing on a thumbnail, and stared blankly at the wall.

Brad thought back to the time he’d been in the hospital with his ankle. “You need a shower, some actual food, and some actual sleep in an actual bed,” he told Ray. “I’ll come back tomorrow, okay?” 

“No, stay...I mean, you can stay, if you want to, I’m just not…ahhh, _fuck_ this!” Ray ground the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “This fucking sucks,” he said, dropping his hands and looking up, making eye contact with Brad for the first time all day. Brad held it, steadily, until Ray spoke again in a rush. “I want you to stay but you’re not gonna want to stay because I’m going to be a total asshole and it’ll suck big sweaty donkey balls. Okay?”

“I’m concerned that you know how much sweaty donkey balls suck, Raymond,” Brad said, after a long quiet moment, and Ray laughed, finally: shaky and tense, but better, maybe. But the sheaf of papers from the clinic still lay on the table between them, and Brad couldn’t keep his glance from straying over to it. 

“I’m on a lot of restrictions,” Ray said, intercepting Brad’s glance. “Like...a _lot_ a lot. I’m fine!” he added quickly. “I feel fine now, it’s all good, it’s just a lot of military bullshit CYA. Mostly.” He hesitated. “Fuck, read through it, if you want, I don’t care.”

Brad nodded. “You should go grab that shower,” he said. “I’ll see if I can locate anything semi-edible on the premises.”

*

It was a long shower. Brad had time to go through the fridge and the cabinets, throw almost everything out in disgust, order Chinese, and read through the stack of medical papers twice. He glanced at the clock and frowned, flashing back briefly to the other night when he’d had to haul Ray out of the shower, but just then Ray started warbling the Destiny’s Child song from the radio in falsetto. It sounded weak and forced at first, but got stronger after a minute or two.

Brad went into the bathroom anyway and let himself in. The door was only half closed. “That you, Bradley?” Ray called out. “When you're right, you're right--this was the best shower of my life, I'm a new man. Hang on, I'll be out in a sec.” 

Brad sat down on the toilet lid. “I read the papers,” he said.

“What?” Ray shut off the water. “Pass me a towel, homes.” He stepped out a moment later, wrapping it around his waist and shaking drops from his hair. Brad couldn't help checking him out, and Ray saw him doing it and raised his eyebrows with a suggestive grin, but Brad cut him off before he could say anything. 

“I read the paperwork,” he repeated. “They want you to take a medical discharge, is that correct? Jesus Christ, Ray. Are you going to sign off on it?”

“It's either that or learn to embrace my brand-new exciting career as a fucking POG,” Ray said. “What do you think I'm going to do? Are you sure you want to talk about this right now? That was a mood-altering shower experience, I'm telling you.”

“You can't re-up with us,” Brad said, because it was still sinking in, and Ray shook his head slowly. 

“I don't know if I was going to anyway,” he said, which was yet another gut-punch, but Ray kept going. “It's, uh, kind of something else not to have a choice in the matter, though. Maybe it's better this way, I don't know.” He blew out a shaky breath and hitched the towel a little tighter around his hips. “Fucked-up, right?”

Brad could only nod, glad he was still sitting down.

“You still want to sleep with me?” Ray asked, serious again and quiet. He took a step closer, within reach now.

Brad nodded again, slowly, and Ray closed the distance between them, leaning down and pressing his lips softly and deliberately against Brad’s. It was surprisingly gentle and almost shockingly erotic for a closed-mouth kiss, maybe because it was so unexpected, Brad thought. He got his hands on Ray’s waist and began to pull him in closer--

The doorbell rang.

“Chinese,” Brad sighed. “We have the best timing.”

“You ordered Chinese? Oh, I _love_ you.” Ray turned the kiss into a loud wet smack and bounded away to answer the door, still towel-clad.

*

“I can't keep up,” Brad said, ten minutes later, bemusedly watching Ray inhale beef and broccoli using three chopsticks as a shovel. (Brad had held the takeout bag out of his reach until he'd gone to put on clothes.) “I knew you were an ADD lunatic on deployment, but I figured at least some of it was down to combat endorphins and Ripped Fuel.”

“No, I'm pretty much a natural roller coaster all the time,” Ray assured him. “You’ll be glad to get rid of me when you ship out again, trust me.”

“That's not for a while,” Brad reminded him. And himself. Maybe it actually was for the best--he couldn't keep Ray on his team if they were in a relationship, and he'd hate like hell to let anyone else have him, even Poke. He still wasn't ready to think about it. He was hooked, Brad thought, watching Ray eat. The past few days of separation and worry had only cemented it. He was hooked on this hyperactive, malaria-ridden, irreverent little trash monster with zero table manners--and as good as civilian, now, besides. Brad’s only hope was that the sex would turn out to be terrible, although from the small tastes he’d had so far it didn't seem likely.

Ray put down his chopsticks at last, drained a glass of water, and sat back with a sigh. “I think,” he said meditatively, “you should show me your dick now.”

Brad lifted his eyebrows. “Do you,” he said, smiling slightly. “Well, we all have dreams, Ray-Ray.” He was busy fishing the correct dosages of pills out of the two prescription bottles on the table--two big yellows, one little blue--and he passed them over to Ray before refilling his water glass. Ray sighed and rolled his eyes, but tossed them back without comment. 

“I don't mean you have to fuck me right here on the kitchen table,” Ray went on. “I mean, you could. But really, I just want to know what I'm working with here. I've had the occasional surreptitious peek, I admit, but it's not the same. And I've shown you mine--fuck, you’ve _swallowed_ mine. It's only fair.”

Brad dipped a napkin in his water glass and tossed it across the table. “You’ve got oyster sauce all over your face,” he said. “Clean yourself up and report to the bedroom. I don't do kitchen sex on the first date.”

*

“Wow,” said Ray, a few minutes later, in his room, when they'd been kissing and shedding clothes for a while, and then, “Huh.” 

Brad made a face at him. He'd heard it all before.

“I mean...wow, huh. Does that ever cause you, like, problems?” He traced Brad’s length with two carefully reverent fingers, making him shiver and go even harder. “I've definitely never seen it at, uh, full capacity before. You're not gonna pass out, are you?”

“Fuck you,” Brad managed, brilliantly.

“Oh, I want to, believe me, I just don't know if it'll fit. Bradley, man, I'm at a loss.”

“You're making this weird,” Brad told him. “Shut up. And I wasn't actually planning on...that.”

“‘That’? Why, officer, whatever do you mean?”

“Ray, for fuck’s sake.” 

“See? You do know your words. You can use them for other things besides profanity, too, you know. As in, ‘I wasn't actually planning on fucking you in the ass with my monster cock tonight, Ray.’ Although--”

“Ray, seriously, will you shut the fuck up or do I have to throttle you?”

“That could be hot too,” Ray said, then “Sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry, I know, I'm an asshole and I'm terrible at this--I mean, I’m an A-plus lay once I get going, don't get me wrong, I'm just…”

“Nervous,” Brad suggested.

“Petrified,” Ray said, and moved one of Brad’s hands up to his chest. His heartbeat felt like a trapped bird. He just looked at Brad for a long moment, his eyes suddenly so wide and dark and serious that it was hard to hold his gaze. “I'm so into you,” he said finally. “For real. For so long now. Do whatever you want to me, I'm yours, and I am absolutely shutting up now.”

“So it's my turn to talk?”

Ray nodded.

“Good. So what I want to do to you is this.” He straddled Ray’s hips, took hold of his wrists, and leaned over him, pinning him down and kissing him very lightly on his collarbones, his neck, nosing along his jawline. “Just this, for a while,” Brad murmured, “until you're begging me to start touching your dick because you're so turned on, but I won't--no, I'm still talking now, shut up. Instead I'm going to open you up and fuck you with my fingers, incredibly slowly,” (Ray made a small desperate sound in his throat) “--yeah, just my fingers tonight, because I read through your clinic release papers, as you may recall, and getting fucked by the monster cock definitely counts as strenuous physical activity, so we’ll have to work up to that.”

He moved down Ray’s body a bit, biting gently at each of his nipples, making him arch his back and open his mouth wide in a silent groan. “And after I've made you come with just my fingers inside you,” Brad went on, moving down more to kiss Ray’s stomach for a while, “after that you can bring me off however you want. Deal?” He glanced down a bit and saw that he'd managed to make Ray leak just by dirty-talking him, and took hold of him just long enough to taste him, his tongue delicate against the tip, which throbbed at the contact.

Ray jerked away with a gasp. “Fuck,” he pleaded. “Don't make me come before you do all that, you total cocktease. Can I--can I touch you while you're--”

“Affirmative,” Brad said, and guided Ray’s hand down into position.

*

Twenty minutes later, Brad surveyed the wreck he'd made of his RTO and found it good. Ray looked thoroughly well-fucked: boneless and sweaty, chest still heaving slightly, eyelids drooped mostly shut. He looked down for the count--he hardly twitched when Brad used his discarded t-shirt to wipe the come off his belly--which was all for the best, really; Brad didn’t mind. He’d bring himself off tonight, it wouldn’t take much, and get his tomorrow. He’d only given himself a couple of strokes, though, when Ray’s hand shot out and grabbed him by the wrist.

“Nuh-uh, homes,” Ray said, without opening his eyes. “That’s mine. We had a deal.”

“You should sleep,” Brad protested, but Ray was sitting up now, shaking his head reproachfully at him. 

“A deal’s a deal, Sergeant,” he said. “Lie back like a good boy now, it’s my turn to show off my skills. Fucking _finally._ ”

“Just...be careful,” Brad told him. “I mean it, Ray.”

Ray looked up from positioning himself between Brad’s legs. “Scared?” he said, knowingly. “Yeah. I get it. And you're _right_ to be scared, I won't lie to you, my moves are pretty intense. I’ll make it good for you, though, I promise I'll be gentle.”

Brad shook his head and gave himself up to laughter. He wasn't laughing for long, though. Ray’s mouth on his cock was an exquisite tease: soft pointed-tongue licks around the corona alternating with far-too-brief full-mouth suction, while one hand moved slowly and firmly up and down his shaft, jerking him closer and closer to the edge. 

“Ray,” he managed to gasp, tapping him on the shoulder, but the hand around his length had already clamped down hard, and Ray pulled his mouth off from him a second later. Brad heard himself make a small agonized sound as his impending climax ebbed away. 

“Good, Brad, that's good,” Ray said approvingly. “I might let you actually come next time, although probably not. You're so goddamn _pretty_ when you're desperate, baby, I had no idea.” He ducked his head down again before Brad could think of a suitable comeback, licking right into his slit this time for just a moment, and Brad made some more inarticulate sounds. 

Ray looked up at him while he brought his own index finger to his mouth and sucked it, slow and suggestive. “Can I?” he asked.

“Fuck,” Brad said to the ceiling, and nodded.

“That's a yes?” Ray insisted, waiting.

“Yes, _fuck_ yes.” Brad bent his knees up and shut his eyes, then arched his spine and cried out again as Ray took him all the way into his mouth and pushed his finger into him at the same time. 

“I knew you'd be tight, but not like this,” Ray marveled a few minutes later. His left hand had replaced his mouth, working expertly over and around the head of Brad’s dick while his right forefinger still teased at places deep inside him; Brad couldn't keep still. “God, I can't wait to fuck you for real, this is going to feel a-fucking-mazing around my cock. You're close again, aren't you? Hang on, not yet, I want you to come in my mouth, wanna taste you--” 

He was almost too late.

Brad was vaguely cognizant of Ray’s voice over the next few minutes, talking inaudible nonsense on and on. He could feel it more than hear it, because Ray’s head was on his stomach facing away from him, but as his ears quit ringing he started to be able to make out a few words here and there.

“Ray,” he said at last, pushing himself up on his elbows. “Are you talking to my _dick_?” 

“Yeah. Shh. Do you mind? We’re having a very private conversation here.” 

“I'm not allowed to hear what you're saying to my own unit? That's pretty cold.”

“You wouldn't understand. I'm like, a dick whisperer, they've sort of got their own language. It’s nothing bad about you, though, don't feel threatened. I'm basically just telling it how awesome it is and how much fun we’re going to have getting to know each other better, but it'll get all self-conscious if it thinks you're listening in. Just...give us a minute here. Please.”

Brad lay back down, shaking his head again and grinning up at the ceiling. Sex, he thought. So this was sex with Ray. He was having sex with his best friend, a complete and total madman who turned out to have skills almost as good as he'd bragged about, and he was planning to do it again repeatedly for the next several months, and it was a good thing Ray wasn't shipping out with them again, probably, because Brad’s combat effectiveness would be zero if he had to be in a victor with him again _knowing_ what he was sitting next to, let alone having Ray in constant danger--

“Okay, all square,” Ray said, flopping back up on the pillow next to him. “What? You look like you're going to murder someone. You’re not jealous, are you? Of me and the monster cock? We’re going to have a highly intimate relationship, it's true, but I mean, you're pretty much guaranteed to be involved at some level.”

“Shut up,” Brad said, grinning, and kissed him, because he could. “Go to sleep, okay?”

“Everything’s good?” Ray yawned hugely.

“Everything,” said Brad, and it was.


End file.
